young mums and young druggies

i've always known that too many Liverpudlians (we call them 'scousers' more endearingly) engage in pre-marital sex when they are too young. Little girls get pregnant at age 12, give birth to a kid at 13, then go on to have a second, third or fourth child at age 14, 15, 16. However, the idea that these young mums here are REALLY young only truly hit home today when I saw a girl in her school uniform cradling her little toddler. She looked like she was barely mature enough to take care of herself! Yet there she was, like a little kid heading home after school and playing with her doll on the bus... except that the doll happens to be soft, warm, and breathing. That whole image was so... so disturbing.

Another thing that made me sigh today was the sight of young druggies. I was walking about in town when i saw a group of 10, 11 year old boys sitting outside the everton fc shop. One of them had a cigarette lodged between his index and middle-finger, puffing away as if he had been doing so for years. But what really alarmed me was not the sight of him smoking, but the fact that it was weed that i smelled in his smoke. Honestly, where do these kids learn these terrible habits from? How on earth did they manage to get their hands on weed? Do they go to school at all? Do they even have parents to discipline them at all????

Kids misbehaving themselves on the public bus. Kids spewing vulgarities left right and centre. Kids spitting at each other like pros. Kids taunting adults sitting near to them. That's what I'm seeing of the children over here. Children are meant to be innocent and harmless, aren't they?But they scare me!! What is the world coming to?